Work is neither a subject omitted by the research on the Horn of Africa, however this is nor an object of study in its own right. Scholars generally subordinate analysis of work to analysis of development. On the one hand this concept of development is linked with an optimistic vision which highlights the successes of the developmental State implemented in Ethiopia. On the other hand, development is associated to a pessimistic view of the country, focused on poverty reduction.

If human beings are the result of a historical process and not the product of a pre-established plan, it is important to emphasize the significance of cooperative actions for their preservation throughout this process. A path in which work – as a constitutive element of our species – plays a decisive role in these actions. How has cooperation been taking place in formal and informal work activities? How have the current modes of management and their evaluation and training systems contributed to the construction or weakening of cooperative acts at work? What are the requirements to build cooperation?

The Centre Walras-Pareto is organizing a workshop on the history of wages. The workshop will take place at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), 29-30 September 2016. Much has been written on wages within economics. In his classical account of the history ofwage theory, Dunlop (1957) refers to three time-periods: the wage-fund theory domination,the rise of marginal productivity distribution theory, and the “contemporary setting”, startingin the 1930s and characterized by a diversity of theoretical arguments; but much has changed.

Portuguese singularity presents today new communication bridges in comparison to other territorial realities, offering itself as a rare laboratory of sociological analysis. Regression phenomenon’s (both structural and dispositional) of articulation of social change’s asynchronous rhythms, of risk proliferation and uncertainty, conflictive conciliation of multiple modernities, within an unfinished one, challenge us to look sociologically at these last 40 years and also to think prospectively on tendencies and future challenges.